1st week of rehearsal down

So I've gotten the first week of rehearsals done for my next show, God's Country. It's a play by Steven Dietz about The Order, a group of racialist extremists who murdered Denver DJ Alan Berg in the mid-80s. It's a play ful of uncomfortable subject matter, with racism, anti-semitism and political upheaval, which is exactly the kind of theatre that I like, but it's going to be a challenge. I think I've got a pretty solid cast, but most of them I've never worked with before. Actually, 3 out of the 10 I've directed before, but it's been a long time since I've directed Tom O, and actually quite a while since I've directed Myk, but he's one of my best friends so I'm not sweating that. Also not sweating Uncle Phil, since he's become one of my closest friends over the past year or so.

But that still leaves a lot of folks that I'm pretty unfamiliar with. So far, most of them seem eager to work, but we've just gotten through reading the play and talking about it. Next week comes the blocking, which is always tough, and harder than usual in this show, which is very cinematic in nature, with lots of jumping from place to place, time to time and character to character. Reminds me of my fears starting out in Corpus Christi, and that turned out to be pretty fantastic.

I'll keep you posted.